Engaging with Communities

To create and sustain an effective community relations function, we look at the needs of the communities in which we operate around the world and focus on those needs. We also recognize that we must embed community issues into our core business practices and manage them with the same rigor as other aspects of our business.

Several trends have reshaped our industry and our company in recent years, including increased competition globally and changing markets for our products. The bulk of future sales growth is expected to occur in emerging economies. In response, Ford is increasing its footprint in emerging markets: We are expanding or building new plants at seven locations in the Asia Pacific region and we are hiring employees across that region. Ford and other companies are also expanding our supply chain in these lower-cost emerging markets. These changes are affecting not only how we manage our operations, but also how we engage with and affect the communities in which we operate.

In recent years, we have taken steps to develop a more integrated approach to managing the different dimensions of our community involvement. Our goal is to more closely connect our traditional community relations programs, community impact assessment processes and key sustainability priorities such as human rights, access to water and driving safety. To address these changes, we have refocused our community efforts to reflect the global nature of our business, while recognizing that Michigan is our headquarters state and will always remain an important part of our focus. (Please see “Expanding Our Global Reach” for more information on how we are globalizing our approach to community projects.)

Whether doing business in Michigan or Malaysia, we seek to respect and make a positive contribution to our host communities. Operating in emerging economies, however, does bring with it some new community issues for us to understand and manage.

One of these issues is human rights. Specifically, we must ensure that our products, no matter where they are made, are manufactured under conditions that demonstrate respect for the people who make them. We also must respect the rights of people living in the communities around our facilities, as well as our suppliers’ facilities, who may be affected by those operations. We view respect for human rights not only as a core operational issue, but also a key to maintaining the trust and respect of local communities. That trust is critical if we want to continue to operate and sell our products in those locations. In 2003, we released our Code of Basic Working Conditions reinforcing that our behaviors and actions as a company must include a focus on issues outside the walls of our plants and facilities. This Code is formalized as part of our business practices as Policy Letter 24: Code of Human Rights, Basic Working Conditions and Corporate Responsibility. It addresses important working conditions and human rights issues including working hours, child labor, forced labor, engagement with communities and indigenous populations, bribery and corruption, and environment and sustainability. We assess Ford owned and operated facilities on several key community issues and evaluate engagement with members of the local community. (See the Governance section for more on this topic.) Policy Letter 24 also extends to our supply chain by enforcing similar policies for our suppliers and their subcontractors consistent with our Global Terms and Conditions for suppliers. (See the Supply Chain section for more information on this topic).

As we expand into new markets in more water-stressed regions, we are also expanding our engagement with local communities on water issues. We have developed a comprehensive water strategy based on both environmental and social risks and opportunities in local communities where we operate. For more information on this topic see the Water section of this report. Over time, we also want to link all of these efforts with our development of new products and services to meet the unique mobility needs of communities in emerging markets. (See the Mobility section for more on this topic.) In our view, this approach will not only increase efficiencies, but also maximize our impact and effectiveness.

As we seek to embed these and other key issues and values into our business practices, we are also giving them life through our investments in communities through strategic contributions and volunteer efforts. For example, our commitment to human rights isn’t just a corporate policy governing our business practices, it is also the driving force behind many of our community projects. Baby Safe, a project we helped fund in South Africa, provides one example. Through this project, we helped to fund an anonymous system through which mothers can safely leave babies they cannot care for with organizations who can care for them and help find them homes. Before the Baby Safe program was implemented, unwanted babies were frequently left to die. The remainder of this section, which describes our community investment programs and projects, helps to illustrate how we are following through on our One Ford commitment to contribute to a better world through our philanthropic and volunteer efforts.